The Madcap Laughs
The Madcap Laughs is the debut solo album by the English singer-songwriter Syd Barrett. It was recorded after Barrett had left Pink Floyd in April 1968. The album had a lengthy recording history, with work beginning in May 1968, but the bulk of the sessions taking place between April and July 1969, for which five different producers were credited including Barrett himself, Peter Jenner, Malcolm Jones, and fellow Pink Floyd members David Gilmour and Roger Waters. Among the guest musicians are Willie Wilson from Gilmour's old band Jokers Wild and several members of Soft Machine.
The Madcap Laughs, released in January 1970 on Harvest in the UK but not released in the US until 1974, enjoyed limited commercial success on release, reaching number 40 on the UK's official albums chart. It was re-released in 1974 as part of Syd Barrett, which saw the first US issue of the two LPs. The album was remastered and reissued in 1993, along with Barrett's other albums, Barrett and Opel, independently and as part of the Crazy Diamond box set. A newly remastered version was released in 2010.
Background
In the second half of 1967 and through to early 1968, when still part of Pink Floyd, Barrett's behaviour became increasingly erratic and unpredictable. Many report having seen him on stage with the group during this period, strumming on one chord through an entire concert or not playing at all. In August 1967, Pink Floyd were forced to cancel their appearance at the prestigious National Jazz and Blues Festival, informing the music press that Barrett was suffering from nervous exhaustion. Band manager Peter Jenner and bassist Roger Waters arranged for Barrett to see a psychiatrist, while a stay on the Spanish island of Formentera with Sam Hutt, a doctor well established in the underground music scene, led to no visible improvement in Barrett's behaviour. A few dates in September were followed by the band's first tour of the United States. At this point, Barrett's condition grew steadily worse. At a show at The Fillmore in San Francisco, during a performance of "Interstellar Overdrive", Barrett slowly detuned his guitar; the audience seemed to enjoy such antics, unaware of the rest of the band's consternation. Sometime in October, Jenner transferred tapes of "In the Beechwoods", two takes of "Vegetable Man", and a 5-minute backing track called "No Title", which Jenner hoped Barrett would finish eventually.Around Christmas 1967, guitarist David Gilmour, an old friend of Barrett's from Cambridge, was asked by the other members of Pink Floyd to join as a second guitarist, initially not to replace Barrett, but cover for him, because his unpredictable behaviour prevented him from performing. For several shows Gilmour sang and played guitar while Barrett wandered around on stage, every now and then deciding to join in playing guitar and singing. Waters and fellow band members keyboardist Richard Wright and drummer Nick Mason soon grew weary of Barrett's on-stage antics and, on 26 January 1968, when Waters was driving his bandmates from London to a show at Southampton University, they all agreed to go without Barrett: according to Gilmour's recollection, one person asked, "Shall we pick Syd up?" and another said, "Let's not bother." Since Barrett had written or co-written 10 of the 11 songs on their debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, as well as the band's three singles up to this point, the original plan was to keep him in the group as a non-touring member − in a similar arrangement to what The Beach Boys had done with Brian Wilson − but this soon proved to be unworkable. At his last rehearsal with the band, he presented a new song entitled "Have You Got It Yet?", which proved to be deliberately unplayable as the others attempted to join in, until they realised the joke of the title. On 6 April, the group officially announced that Barrett was no longer a member of Pink Floyd. Upon leaving the band, Barrett said to Melody Maker: "I suppose it was really just a matter of being a little offhand about things".
Recording
Peter Jenner sessions
After Barrett left Pink Floyd in April 1968, Peter Jenner and Andrew King, from the band's management, followed suit. Nick Mason later commented on Jenner & King leaving with Barrett many years later: "Peter and Andrew clearly felt that Syd was the creative centre of the band, a reasonable point of view given our track record up until that point. Consequently, they decided to represent him rather than us." In May, Jenner led Barrett into EMI Studios, on Abbey Road in northwest London, to record some solo material, only part of which would later appear on The Madcap Laughs. Jenner thought Barrett would like to finish the tracks that Jenner transferred the previous October; Barrett on the other hand, had other plans. During these first, tentative sessions, Jenner failed to properly record any vocals at all for the tracks "Golden Hair", "Late Night", "Clowns and Jugglers", "Silas Lang", or "Lanky ". After recording had resumed in June and July, progress continued on these tracks, especially "Swan Lee", and a new, improved version of "Clowns and Jugglers" was taped at this point also. Barrett wouldn't commit to recording the track "Rhamadam" to tape properly, however.Although Jenner claims he got on well with the singer, he would also state that the 1968 sessions had not gone smoothly, admitting: "I had seriously underestimated the difficulties of working with him ..." Shortly after the July dates, Barrett abruptly stopped recording, breaking up with girlfriend Lindsay Corner and then going off on a drive around Britain in his Mini; he ended up in psychiatric care in Cambridge.
By the start of 1969, a somewhat recovered Barrett decided to return to his musical career and revisit the Jenner-produced recordings. He contacted EMI, and was passed on to Malcolm Jones, then-head of EMI's new prog rock label, Harvest. After both Jenner and Norman Smith, Pink Floyd's producer at the time, declined to work on the album, Jones agreed to take on the role.
Malcolm Jones sessions
Jones had little difficulty in persuading his boss, Roy Featherstone, and Ron White, authoriser of EMI recordings, to allow Barrett to record with the company again. In April 1969, the young executive took over the project and Barrett began working on newer material, while reworking the 1968 recordings. Jones would later comment that the sessions with Barrett had gone well: "Syd was in a great mood, and in fine form, a stark contrast to the rumours and stories I'd been fed." Jones also explained the rationale behind EMI letting Barrett record again: "What was decided was to see what was the strength of Syd's new material, and plan accordingly. If it worked, then, O.K. we'd do an album. If not, we'd call it a day ..." In a meeting at Barrett's flat in Earls Court, unsure of Jenner's production technique, Jones asked to hear some of the previous year's tapes; Barrett played him "Swan Lee", "Late Night", "Rhamadam", "Lanky " and "Golden Hair". Of these, "Swan Lee" had no vocals, but Jones saw potential in the song; "Late Night" did have vocals and, Jones remarked, "a certain charm"; while "Golden Hair" was "great". After the playbacks, Barrett performed several songs on guitar for Jones: "Opel" and "Clowns and Jugglers", and the newly written "Terrapin" and "Love You".The Jones-produced sessions commenced on 10 April 1969 at EMI's Studio 3, with that day being dedicated to going through the 1968 tapes again to see what could be improved upon. The first track to be worked on was "Swan Lee", which received vocal overdubs and a new guitar track, and several ideas for "Clowns and Jugglers" were considered; Barrett and Jones both felt that the results were superior to the previous versions. The following day, in about five hours, Barrett recorded vocal and guitar tracks for four recently recorded songs, starting with "Opel", and two old ones. Barrett and his new producer were in agreement that "Opel" was among the best of the new recordings at this time; only two complete takes of the song were taped, though, after multiple false starts. The next song attempted was "Love You", the first take of which featured a faster tempo than the officially released take 2. After "Love You", they recorded "It's No Good Trying", which was similarly completed in just a few takes. Barrett was in "great form, and very happy", Jones recalled, and "very together". During the lunch break that day, they talked about improving some of the other songs from the Jenner sessions, particularly "Golden Hair" and "Late Night", the last of which was just a backing track at this point. After returning to the studio, they worked on "Terrapin", with Barrett requiring just a single take, and added slide guitar and vocals to "Late Night".
The following session took place on 17 April, in Studio 2 at EMI. Jones arrived there to find that Barrett had brought in friends of his as support musicians: Jerry Shirley, drummer with Humble Pie, and Willie Wilson, Jokers Wild's drummer, although for this occasion he was playing bass. The problem with this new set-up, though, was that the songs were recorded as Barrett played them live in the studio; on the released versions, a number of them have false starts and commentaries from Barrett. The first track Barrett and his fellow musicians worked on was "No Man's Land", after Barrett had played through the song several times, to allow Shirley and Wilson to pick up the segments. Once the rehearsal was through, they went for a take, to check how the band sounded and to test the equipment from within the control room. After these tests, the band recorded three takes, the last of which became the master take for "No Man's Land"; the bass, however, was re-recorded at a later date. Playing along with Barrett wasn't easy, according to Jones: "It was a case of following him, not playing with him. They were seeing and then playing so they were always a note behind ..." Shirley said of Barrett: "He gave the impression he knew something you didn't. He had this music sort of giggle ..."
Next, they recorded a song that Barrett had written in a few minutes, "Here I Go", which required no overdubs at all. This session for "No Man's Land" and "Here I Go" lasted just three hours. When asked if he had any new songs for the following week's session, on 23 April, Barrett replied that he had "a weird idea I want to try out" and that other musicians would not be required. Afterwards, Barrett mentioned that he was interested in revisiting one of the Jenner tracks − "Rhamadam". On the morning of the 23rd, Barrett arrived at the studio with a cassette player, on which he had recorded motorbike sounds; these, he told Jones, were "all ready to put onto the 'Rhamadam' four track". The producer described the sound quality as "terrible", an opinion that was confirmed once Barrett's player had been hooked up to a 4-track machine. Instead it was decided that Barrett should source the motorbike sounds from EMI's large sound effects library. The selection process took up to an hour, at which point Jones started to lose faith in Barrett. Later on, Barrett changed his mind and abandoned the idea.
The session on 25 April was almost cancelled, due to Jones becoming ill from colitis. Beforehand, it had been agreed that this session would be dedicated to transferring their previously recorded, 4-track recordings onto Studio 3's newer 8-track machine, for further overdubs in later sessions. At Jones' suggestion, and despite warnings the producer had received that Barrett should not be in the studio unaccompanied, Barrett went in on his own to carry out the mixing. It had been decided that nearly all of the tracks that were recorded up to that point needed further overdubbing except for "No Man's Land" and "Here I Go". At this point, Barrett considered placing "Opel" on the album, Jones calls it among Barrett's "best and most haunting" songs. On the session for 3 May, three tracks on the album were overdubbed by Robert Wyatt, Hugh Hopper and Mike Ratledge, all members of the band Soft Machine: The three songs were "Love You", "No Good Trying", and "Clowns and Jugglers". Even after the Soft Machine members added overdubs to "Clowns and Jugglers", Barrett wished to add bass and drums to it.
Robert Wyatt had said that the musicians would ask "What key is that in, Syd?", to which Barrett would simply reply "Yeah" or "That's funny". Wyatt had also offered the following comments on the sessions: "Working with Syd Barrett's a piece of cake, I think. I found him courteous and friendly. I can't think of anything wrong with him. I really liked his songs. I liked them musically, I liked them lyrically, and I liked the way he sang them. I just think that not everybody fits into the business. I know from personal experience, it's not that easy." During this time, Barrett also played guitar on the sessions for Soft Machine founder Kevin Ayers' debut LP, Joy of a Toy, although his performance on "Religious Experience" was not released until the album was reissued in 2003. The next day's session had Barrett adding backwards guitar to "No Good Trying", and lead to "Terrapin" and "No Man's Land". It was around this time that Jones' involvement came to an end – during these last few sessions, Gilmour had started taking an interest in how Barrett was getting along with his album. Although Barrett had told his flatmate that he was going off "for an afternoon drive", he instead followed Pink Floyd out to Ibiza. During the trip, he asked David Gilmour for his help on the album, and, at the end of May, Malcolm Jones abandoned his production responsibilities.